1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to shelving systems and more particularly to a free standing stacking shelf system wherein the stacking shelves have collapsible legs which can be selectively locked in an upright position.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ventilated shelving systems are known which include a plurality of shelves, each shelf being formed from a pair of longitudinally extending side edge rods and a plurality of parallel transverse or cross bars which are fixedly coupled at each end thereof to the longitudinal rods. When such shelving systems are assembled and put in place for example within a closet, each of the shelves is mounted to the wall at vertically spaced intervals and/or are fixedly coupled at vertically spaced intervals to vertical poles. These shelving systems have the disadvantage that individual shelves are not free standing. Furthermore, such ventilated shelving systems may not be readily disassembled for moving the same and/or readily assembled so as to provide a different number of shelves in accordance with a particular consumer's varying needs.
A free standing stacking shelf system is proposed in earlier, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,284. With that structure, stacking elements or legs are removably coupled to and extend downwardly from shelves of the shelving system and engage a next adjacent lower shelf so as to hold the shelves in a free standing, spaced relation. While such a free standing stacking shelf system provides a versatile shelf system and remedies certain deficiencies of conventional ventilated shelving systems, it is not to say that further improvements in ventilated shelving are not possible and indeed the present invention constitutes an improvement of such a free standing stacking shelf system.
More particularly, the above-noted free standing stacking shelf system provides legs or stacking elements which are coupled to a particular shelf so as to allow the same to be free standing and must be removed therefrom during shelf disassembly. However, it would be desirable to provide a free standing stacking shelf wherein the legs are selectively collapsible and selectively lockable into an upstanding disposition so that the shelves can be selectively collapsed for shipment, storage, and marketing and selectively locked in an upstanding disposition or free standing configuration when the shelf is to be assembled or otherwise placed in use. Another stacking shelf is known which has substantially rectilinear stacking elements fixedly mounted to each longitudinal end of a horizontal support surface. The stacking elements are configured so that a vertically lowermost portion of each stacking element can be interlocked to the vertically uppermost portion of a next adjacent lower stacking element which extends above the horizontal support surface of a next adjacent lower shelf.
Such stacking shelves again have the disadvantage that the legs are not collapsible or foldable into a compact storage configuration. In fact, the stacking elements of those stacking shelves cannot be removed from the associated shelf. Yet a further disadvantage of that structure is that the stacking element must be flexed inwardly, towards the stacking element disposed at the opposite longitudinal end of the shelf to enable interlocking of vertically adjacent shelves. Such flexing the of stacking elements stresses the interconnection of the horizontal support surface and the stacking element and can result in fracture of the assembly.